May 13 - May 19

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Welcome folks, and happy “30th anniversary of the last episode of Family Ties” week! You may all celebrate by sitting in your office chair, rolling it across the room and wondering what happened to the monoculture.

Rage 2 is the biggest name coming out this week. Bethesda brought in Just Cause devs, Avalanche Studios, to help id Software turn this into a viable franchise. Given each devs’ strengths, the gameplay loop will consist of driving through an overworld riven with mayhem and distractions, then arriving at a mission building for some (hopefully) smooth corridor shooting. The mayhem piece will be nudged along by crazy powers and unique weapons like the Grav-Dart gun, which fires darts into an object and then allows you to tell the darts to head toward another object. It serves the same “See what happens when you put these two things together (and hopefully make Youtube videos about it)” function that the grappling hook does in Just Cause.

I may sound cynical, but that’s just my reaction to hype about open-world hijinks. It’s increasingly hard to gauge from previews whether an open-world game will be a place you never want to leave or a grindy chore. The former sees you through an entire winter/summer and ends up on your GOTY list, the latter ends up on the Pile of Shame. And everyone’s mileage varies. Rage 2 will at least avoid making the same mistake that Rage did, of not having enough to do.

Speaking of handing a flailing property to new devs to breathe some life into it, the BIT.TRIP devs are bringing out Bubsy: Paws on Fire. Bubsy is one of those platforming mascot creatures from the 1990s. Its original devs, Accolade, went under years ago, but its assets have been pass-the-parcelled until they reached a Hong Kong holding company, which has decided to put its discount IP to work. Interesting game history aside, the intriguing bit is the varied gameplay of each of the four playable characters: Bubsy does side-scrolling platforming, Woolie does side-scrolling shmupping and the other two do, err, other things that I didn’t check out.

My GOTW is going to A Plague Tale: Innocence. Many games give us apocalyptic settings in the future, but what about those of the past? Take the example of France in 1349, stricken by both the Black Plague and the Hundred Years’ War. You play as big sister Amicia, taking her little brother Hugo through this landscape, pursued by Inquisitors for story reasons. Swarms of diseased rats are ever near, but deterred by fire. Fire, however, attracts the attention of Inquisitors. Amicia is handy with a sling and Hugo has his uses too, like crawling into small spaces. There’s a mix of stealth, traversal puzzles and crafting. We’ve had Dad of War, now brace for Sister of Pestilence. Hopefully the story holds up.

Here's the list, now in release-date order!

PC

05-13

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Blades of Worlds

H2O: A Drop in the Ocean

Rainbow Hunter

The Tower

Escape until friday

Demon hunter

Player Goes Jump

Sequela

Battle for the Galaxy

Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light

Flavortown:VR

Hardcore Bunny Jumper

ReThink | Evolved 3

Deadly Path

Sarah, you are way too heavy

Adventure Cop

05-14

Rage 2

Sumatra: Fate of Yandi

Space Warfare

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered

Star Impact

ZELENSKY vs POROSHENKO: The Destiny of Ukraine

Risk System

Peanut

Speedrun Squad

Gear City Against Chaos

SUPER RECOILFIGHT

Fakespearean: Overdramatic

DomiDo

Night of the Shrub Part 3

Board Quizz Adventure

Jump with Friends

Achilles

Little Savior

Under Water : Abyss Survival VR

Martians Vs Robots

Yulong Zaitian: Pingheng Guozhanban

05-15

Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest

Iron Marines

Fortress of Hell

This Side

TECHNOSPHERE RELOAD

Necrolance

Great Toilet Simulator

Batteries Included

Beraltors

Fat Dude Simulator

The Defender: Farm and Castle

Sometimes to Deal with the Difficulty of Being Alive, I Need to Believe There Is a Possibility That Life Is Not Real.

05-17

3DS

Vita

05-14

Vive

Comments

Word is the story campaign of Rage 2 is only about 5-6 hours. I'm interested in the combat gameplay, but not of the open-world, so I'm wondering if I'll wait until it's on sale. The problem with me and open-worlds is I tend to feel compelled to hit the markers on the map anyway, regardless of whether I'm having fun or not. I always have my limit, but right now I think I just want a fun, linear shooting experience.

A Plague Tale, however, should be shipping today and arriving tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers for minimal jank, as it seems like it could be a really wonderful game. Mid-budget, to be sure, but such games are often worth supporting.

A Plague Tale: Innocence seems to have an 80 on Metacritic right now. I only checked because, while I haven't read anyone else's thoughts, I've gotten the impression that a few people have thought it not great. I completed the first chapter last night before bed, and there's some awkward movement going on to be certain. The sort of thing where it feels the character has too much of a radius when they move, if that makes sense.

However, it was a solid way to present a tutorial, and I'm already curious about a second run with HUD elements off (just... hopefully including certain context ones since the button mapping doesn't feel super intuitive at first, though I think I get what they're trying for). Can't say much more than that, only that it makes a pretty solid first impression.

If your value of a game is tied to things like production values, though, then this will certainly disappoint as it's clearly more AA value than AAA. But it's still beautiful to look at and there's nothing that really stands out negatively. It's just clearly not the best character models with the most money spent on facial animation and lip syncing.

If your value of a game is tied to things like production values, though, then this will certainly disappoint as it's clearly more AA value than AAA. But it's still beautiful to look at and there's nothing that really stands out negatively. It's just clearly not the best character models with the most money spent on facial animation and lip syncing.

I think that undersells it a bit. To my mind you could tease out specific parts that aren't the peak of gaming tech but taken as a whole it's pretty stunning. Wait until you get further along.

“Respect is one of the great treasures of being human, ennobling us, and opening us to love that nourishes our basic humanity.” ~ Roshi Joan Halifax

Oh, I spent an awful lot of time looking at the opening forest. I think it's just there are some moments where it's a bit jarring and where the nature of a smaller team stands out, but under most circumstances I'm looking at the environments and world and it's just a phenomenal execution of this type of world. Painstaking recreation of an older era, if you will.